Silent and Low Powered Home NAS

[troy1684]

Hi All,

My old Netgear ReadyNas Duo is failing, and I'm looking to build a home NAS that uses very little power and runs completely silent or near silent. The NAS will be on 24/7, where I store pictures and videos/movies I created over the years. These contents will be streamed to my HTPC, desktop, as well as other devices. I also have a couple of IP cameras, which I want to save the captures on the NAS and accessed on other devices. I've been looking around and have decided on the following components, but I'm worried that the heat and cooling solution would not be enough.

I haven't decided on case yet, but most likely will go for a mini ITX, preferably low/small profile. I'm currently looking at the Lian Li PC-Q25b, but not sure yet.

For the PSU, CPU, RAM, and motherboard, I'm looking at the following components:

Intel I3-4130T 2.90 3 LGA 1150 - I picked this because it only uses 35W. It comes with stocked heatsink+fan. Is it possible to just use a heatsink only, so it doesn't generate fan noise? If so, which is recommended?

ASUS H87I-PLUS LGA 1150 Intel H87 - I picked this because it has 6 SATA ports, which I really like. I currently have 2x1TB HDD only but may add more.

SeaSonic X-400W Fanless PSU - Since I wanted to go silent, I also picked this PSU for its fanless. I only wanted 200W-300W fanless, but this was the best available that I could find.

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB

 

[DataMedic]

If you'd like to save on power, skip the work of building your own and just get a Synology.

It can do everything you're suggesting and more.

 

[Snipergod87]

I personally would recommend a Synology, it also has the capability of recording streams from IP camera's and saving them, along with retention policies. (Synology only comes with 1 camera license, if you have more than 1 camera you will need additional licenses), But that's the only thing you have to license.
If you are looking for a dual bay system something like a DS214 (or the higher performing DS214 Play) would do it. You might be able to fine the 2013 models available at cheaper prices too.

I own a DS214 Play and a DS1812+.

 

[Solandri]

I'd echo the above.

#1 choice - get a Synology. A QNAP or Netgear ReadyNAS will do too, but the Synology software is really slick and easy to use, while still allowing you to drop down to the command line if you need to do anything the GUI doesn't allow you to configure.

#2 choice (if your HTPC is always on) - outfit your HTPC with additional storage and use it as your file server.

#3 choice (if you want more CPU power) - use your old laptop. Just put a 1 TB HDD in it, and/or plug in an external HDD for more storage.

#4 choice (if you need more power than the above) - build your own NAS. I built my own NAS, but that's because I wanted 4 drives + SSD and 16 GB of RAM to run virtual machines, as well as run FreeNAS with ZFS. If you're going for a low-end i3 with just 4 GB of RAM, I don't really see the point. Even a large RAID array can be accommodated by a laptop with a RAID enclosure plugged into it. So really the only reason to build your own NAS is for a high-end CPU and more RAM.

 

[troy1684]

If you'd like to save on power, skip the work of building your own and just get a Synology.

It can do everything you're suggesting and more.

That is true. I currently have a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, that's going bad intermittently and access to my data are unreliable. It's a RAID0 system and the hard disks are fine. It's the OS or controller software that's going bad. It looses the volume config and network connectivity, such as CIFS, NFS, etc. I can still ping it but just can't connect via the services. I have to hard reboot it probably once a week. I've contacted Netgear support, but they won't help me, since the product is old. They also asked to leave port open for tech support to telnet to, which I don't like leaving it like that for few days, while the tech looks at it.

That is why I want to build one and have full control over it. Thanks for your suggestion.

 

[Solandri]

That is why I want to build one and have full control over it. Thanks for your suggestion.

The Synologys are basically Linux boxes with a Marvell (ARM) or Atom CPU.
http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/What_kind_of_CPU_does_my_NAS_have

You'll have complete access to the software via ssh or telnet. Heck, you can even install beta software Synology is working on. And their OS updates support their old products too - the one I got for a company file server in 2008 updated last year just fine. The only lack of control you'll have is on the hardware side. But anything low power tends to be expensive and severely limited in terms of repair-ability.

Unless you have other uses in mind than file serving (e.g. running virtual machines, encoding videos, etc.), even an i3 is serious overkill for the task. And why are you getting a 400W power supply for a CPU which will use 35W? My NAS is built on a Sandy Bridge i5 (quad core) with 4 drives, and it still maxes out at just 105 Watts under load. Idles at 35 Watts. PSU is 220 Watts - I initially got a 150W picoPSU to use with it, but the original PSU fan was so quiet I just returned the picoPSU. The only reason you need more than a 200W PSU is if you plan to put a 3D video card in this. (The extra overhead of 200W is used to help spin up the HDDs when you turn the computer on. That can peak at 30-50 Watts per drive - computers deliberately spin the drives up out of sequence so their power spikes don't overlap.)

I'm not trying to discourage you from building your own NAS if that's what you really want to do. I'm just saying I don't see anything in your usage requirements which would benefit from building your own NAS instead of just buying a replacement ReadyNAS or a Synology.

 

[DataMedic]

I think a lot of us here, including myself, have already done the home made NAS in the past. And later moved over to ready build systems like the Synology units after seeing the advantages. I originally purchased a 2 bay Synology just to back up some workstations. After seeing how awesome it worked, I replaced my 20TB home built NAS with another 8 bay Synology. (I also picked up an Intel NUC for the couple Windows processes I needed running 24/7). It cut my energy consumption down by a steady 300 Watts (which adds up $$$ over the coarse of a year).

I've never had, or even really heard of anyone having, any issues with the Synology NAS units. The hardware is solid, and the OS just works. I've never even had to reboot except when installing updates to the system.

 

[Solandri]

It cut my energy consumption down by a steady 300 Watts (which adds up $$$ over the coarse of a year).

If your electricity costs the U.S. average of $0.12 per kWh, then the $ cost to run a system 24/7 is almost exactly its wattage.

($0.12 / kWh) * (8766 hours/year) = $1052 / kW-year = $1.05 / Watt-year

So cutting your power consumption by 300 Watts will save you $315 over a year.

 

[troy1684]

I'm glad I reached out to this forum before pulling the trigger. Thank you so much for the advices, guys. I didn't look into the Synology option thinking they're probably the same as Netgear. I've just looked at a couple of models that fit my needs...probably a DS414 or DS414slim. Although, I'm leaning toward the DS414 because of the read/write speed. Any suggestions regarding these two?

 

[Solandri]

Of those two, go for the DS414. It's a dual core CPU, 1 GB of RAM, and 64-bit memory interface. The DS414slim is a single core CPU, 512 MB of RAM, and 16-bit memory interface. While the slower CPU in the slim is fine for file serving, Synology has a lot of other great software which can benefit from the more powerful CPU.

If you want to transcode 1080p video, you pretty much have to get one of their NASes with an Atom CPU. (Click on the link I posted in an earlier reply.)